Are family-friendly organisations friendly for children? Navigating work, families with children, and discursive power use within organisations

Abstract

Organisations benefit from promoting a family-friendly approach and offering a variety of work-family practices, yet this understanding is not monolithic. A critical discourse analysis is applied herein to interpret the manners of talk and meaning-making around work and families with children and the constructions of (un)family-friendliness in organisations. Particularly, we focus on how the family-friendliness is connected with power configurations within organisations. Focus group research data were gathered from 32 participants in two companies (industry and service). Consequently, we introduce three discourses: (1) optimatisation, (2) leaning on the rules and (3) moral reasoning. These discourses highlight the variance and complexity of how family-friendly approaches are interlinked with organisations’ power use. A more profound understanding of children is needed when theorizing and promoting family-friendly approach in organisations.